


Paper Walls

by orphan_account



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M, food to die for, season two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:27:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2262777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Post 'Food to Die For' because the heart wants what the heart wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Walls

Castle walks away, off home to support his daughter; Beckett watches him until he disappears into the elevator, Maddie’s words replaying over and over in her head. There’s a tug of regret pulling at her heart, and the warmth and the pain all create yet another confusing storm of emotions inside her. 

“Case closed?” Demming asks, taking a seat opposite her at her desk, snapping her attention away from the closed elevator doors. 

“Yes,” she replies. The smile she graces him with isn’t forced as she says, “Thank you so much for all of your help.” 

“Anytime,” he tells her, and her smile falters a bit, because there’s more to his tone, more to that one word, more than she can ask of him, more than she wants. “You know we never really finished our dinner,” he adds, and the regret tugs harder, and the warmth inside her disappears. “No more fives. You want to grab a beer and a burger at Remy’s?”

She contemplates Demming’s offer; she could cancel her plans with Maddie, finish their dinner instead, spend the evening together away from the precinct, and move their relationship forward. It should be what she wants, she could make it what she wants. 

“I would--”  love to ? She meets his eyes, sees the hope shining in them, and no. No, she can’t lie to him. He deserves better. “I’m sorry,” she tells him. “You’re a great guy but--”

“I know where this is headed,” he interrupts, leaning back in the chair, sadness consuming the hope that had lit up his eyes.

Her shoulders slump as she exhales, and it hurts her to speak the next words, to finish her sentence. “But right now? My life? You’ve seen what it’s like around here. I don’t have time to date.” 

His features are tight now. “Who does?” he asks, his voice lighter than his eyes, because he’s trying to mask it, hide from those around them that they’re in the middle of a breakup, trying to salvage his pride. 

Her voice low, she says,  “I thought I could make it work.”

“Is there anything I can say?”

She shakes her head. 

“Okay, well… Okay.” He stands, pushing his chair out slowly, like he thinks he could still change her mind, before thinking twice. A rueful smile graces his lips as he turns from her, and he shakes his head slightly at himself. 

“Demming, I--”

He stops, and shakes his head at her this time. “No,” he tells her. “It’s okay, I actually-- I understand.” And just before he walks away and leaves her sitting there alone, he tells her softly, “Castle’s a lucky man.”

She sits there, dumbstruck, wondering if there is anyone who doesn’t think she’s three seconds from ripping Castle’s clothes off and climbing him like a tree. She isn’t, not three seconds. 

 

Three hours - at least. 

 

* * *

“I just have to say it, Becks. You and Castle would make the most adorable babies.”

Beckett almost chokes on her wine, coughing as it burns her esophagus all the way down. She sits at a small table opposite Maddie, inhaling a wheezing breath, wide eyes, watering slightly from the sting, trained on her friend. “Stop, right now. Stop.”

“Oh, come on, he’s--”

“If you say ruggedly handsome we can no longer be friends.”

Maddie laughs. “All I’m saying, is beautiful babies.”

“And I’m not listening.”

“You said it yourself less than five minutes ago, you’re newly single, and looking for fun. Castle looks like fun.”

“He is.” At Maddie’s lifted eyebrows she rolls her eyes. “Not like that.”

“And like that too, I bet. What’s stopping you?”

Kate shifts her attention to her wine glass, suddenly captivated by the name of the restaurant on the glass, and traces the swirls in the font with a less than steady finger tip.  “Um, the fact I’m not interested is a big one.”

“Lies,” Maddie responds, a hint of boredom in her tone. “Next?”

Kate purses her lips and sighs, before glancing up. “Okay, fine. Maybe there’s a little bit of interest but it wouldn’t work, okay? It would be messy.”

“Messy can be good,” Maddie tells her, a smirk playing on her lips.

“Bad messy. Very bad.”

“Just grab him, and kiss him. Rip his clothes off, and give it a go. If it doesn’t work, well hey, so what? You think he’d be able to walk away, stop shadowing you, after seeing you naked? Unlikely.”

“I like what we have, Maddie,” she argues. “I’d miss it if we lost it.”

“Or you could have something better,” Maddie reminds her. “It doesn’t have to all be doom and gloom.”

“I don’t know if I can risk it.”

Maddie pushes on. “What does your heart say?”

Her eyes find the lettering on the glass once more, drawing courage from the liquid it wraps around.  “It wants to try.”

“Then try.” Maddie’s attention is diverted by a staff member for a moment. She turns back to Kate and smiles apologetically. “I have to deal with something.”

Kate pushes her glass away, and stands. “I should go anyway.”

“Oh no, you don’t have--”

“It’s okay. I, uh, there’s someone I might need to talk to.”

Maddie’s eyes brighten. “Are you serious?”

“I think so.”

Stepping around the table, Maddie wraps her arms around Kate and embraces her in delight. “Let me know what happens?” she asks, pulling back. 

“You’ll be providing the wine and helping me drown my sorrows if it goes south.” 

But Maddie just shrugs off her concerns. “And if it doesn’t I’ll have you both in here for a meal on me, deal?”

“Deal.”

“Go get ‘em, Becks.”

“Thanks for the drink, Maddie.”

“Anytime.”

 

* * *

She knocks on his door, a light rapping sound that's barely audible, half hoping he won’t hear; she could just walk away and pretend she’d never considered this. 

But the door opens, and an anvil drops inside her, her courage fading. 

“Hey,” Castle greets her. He studies her, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion at her presence on his doorstep at eleven at night.

“Hey,” she replies, shifting her weight, suddenly uncomfortable. 

He steps back, opens the door wider. “You wanna come in?”

“Yeah.” She follows him in, not fighting him as he eases her coat off her shoulders and hangs it up for her. It relaxes her again, quells her rising anxiety - or maybe that’s the last of the wine she had downed before leaving the restaurant. 

“Sit down,” he tells her, gesturing with a wave to the couch. “I was just pouring some wine. You want one?”

“Yeah,” she repeats, seemingly unable to say anything else when she really should be declining alcohol.

He joins her at the couch a moment later and hands her a glass of red wine, and she knows she’s acting strange, knows there’s a hesitance in her movements, her voice, that’s got him both perplexed and intrigued. 

“Everything go okay with Madison?” he asks.

“Yeah, fine,” she says. She holds the glass, but doesn’t bring it to her lips, just watches him take a sip, her eyes fixed on his lips, shifting back to her own glass before he can catch her.  “We had a drink, caught up. It was nice.” He watches her, and God he has a way of pushing her with his eyes alone. He doesn’t even need to say the words out loud and she’s giving in. The walls she once built so strong around her heart are mere paper in his presence, and he can burn them down with his eyes alone. “I broke up with Demming.”

He remains silent, absorbing this sudden revelation. “I’m sorry,” he says after a moment. “I thought it was going well.”

“It was,” she replies. Until she started being truthful with herself - and Demming. 

“So what happened?”

She places her glass on the coffee table, the wine untouched, and turns back to him. “You.”

At that admission he places his own glass down, and leans in to her, just a little closer. “Me?”

“You said  the heart wants what the heart wants .”

“And what does your heart want?” he pushes, and she knows it’s because he wants to hear it again, wants it confirmed. Needs it confirmed. 

“You,” she repeats. 

He leans in further, until white and red wine-tinged breath mixes in the air between them, and his lips are but an inch from hers. “Me?”

She leans in this time, until her lips are a whisper of a breath from his, and murmurs, “Yes.” She’s trusting him, trusting him not to pull back and shut her out. Trusting him to have meant it all, and to act on more than a year of innuendo and teasing. If only he knew how big of a deal this was for her, to be here, opening up to him. But maybe he does - she hopes he knows. 

What little distance between them is bridged by him, closing in and pressing his lips to hers before she can lose her nerve and bolt.  His hands tangle in her hair, pressing her mouth more firmly to his, his tongue sliding past her parted lips. Thighs press, side by side, knees knock, and he’s only pulling her closer, squashing any remaining fear she still held. She takes another chance, because her heart is satisfied, but her body is still demanding more. She straddles him, moving her hands to brace against the back of the couch, before settling down against him, and framing his face in her palms. Her lips work his and the tips of her fingers slide down his skin, featherlight along his jaw, down his neck, to the buttons of his shirt. She toys with them, tracing the round buttons with a fingertip, her tongue mimicking and exploring his mouth in circular motions. 

Christ . She pulls back, her hands still and brace against his chest as a thought hits her.  “Is anyone upstairs, Castle?” she asks, breathless. 

“Sleeping.” He leans forward and nips at her lips, trailing kissing along her jaw, down her neck.

Rolling her hips, Beckett moves against the growing bulge in his pants. Her fingers began undoing the buttons of his shirt with haste, desperate to rid him of it. She _had_ been less than three hours from ripping his clothes off. Climbing him is next. 

“But just to be safe,” he murmurs against her neck. “Bedroom.”

She slides with grace off his lap, and reaches out a hand to help him up. He gets to his feet, and then tugs her body against his with their still-joined hand. She moans into his mouth as his tongue fills hers once more; her pelvis thrusts into his, desperate to create friction through clothing, desperate for more. They shuffle back, through his office, into his bedroom, hands fervently removing clothing, lips whispering promises about what tonight means. 

* * *

 

She wakes in the morning, her flesh pressed to his, a tangle of limbs. She shifts, until she can see his face, softly lit by the rising sun, and traces the pads of two finger down his warm skin. She curls into him even closer, and rouses him with a series of soft kisses pressed to every inch of skin she can access. 

  
Heart satisfied; body still wanting.    



End file.
